Policy must separate need for hospital beds from demand

Mapping the Predicted Need for Hospital Beds

There is a long history of approaches for predicting the need for hospital beds at specific locations. Past methods have tended to regard as key variables the ser vice area population, hospital use rate per population unit, average length of stay, and occupancy rates. The usual client for a bed-need study is an individual hos pital. There is no constraint on the forecasting meth odology to ensu...

What policymakers need and must demand from research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities.

Enabling persons with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment has become a priority concern in U.S. society. As a result, federal and state policymakers are adopting employment-related initiatives designed to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities. Policymakers need credible evidence in order to assess and reform these initiatives. This recognized need, ho...

Factors influencing demand for hospital beds in English Primary Care Trusts

Up to the present, the required future number of hospital beds has been calculated under the assumption that changes in demography and length of stay are the major factors determining demand. It is recognised that a significant proportion of acute medical care could be moved into more community focussed models of care; however, there is no current method for estimating how many beds could be sa...

How many hospital beds?

For many years, average bed occupancy level has been the primary measure that has guided hospital bed capacity decisions at both policy and managerial levels. Even now, the common wisdom that there is an excess of beds nationally has been based on a federal target of 85% occupancy that was developed about 25 years ago. This paper examines data from New York state and uses queueing analysis to e...

Reducing Hospital Beds